


Saving Daylight

by ProphecyGirl



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drug Use, Episode: s03e14 Bad Girls, Episode: s03e15 Consequences, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-29 03:58:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17800655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProphecyGirl/pseuds/ProphecyGirl
Summary: After the events of Bad Girls/Consequences, Buffy tries to save Faith from herself.





	Saving Daylight

> _Words are lost in your eyes._   
>  _One thought inside my heart._   
>  _I said that I don't need you, but I'm a liar--_   
>  _I swear I do, I do.._   
>  _\- From Autumn to Ashes, "Alive Out of Habit"_

  
The house is barely that. A ramshackle hovel in Docktown. Peeling pee-colored paint coats the shingles covering it. A few shutters remain, clinging desperately to the window frames, scarcely hanging on by a few nails. The sky is grey, threatening to rain but holding back. A few filthy children dressed in what can only be described as rags play in the gutter, splashing dirty water up at each other and shrieking with joy.

Through the center of all this, a small towheaded girl makes her way towards the pee-house, wrapping her pink shawl around her tighter, more aware than in the past how out of place she is here. She steps onto the porch carefully, but her foot goes through the second step, the wood cracking and giving way. She tugs her leg free and continues up the porch, walking carefully along the beams and not pausing to knock before entering through the creaky and ironically bright red door.

From somewhere within the depths of this hellhole, Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" swirls through the air along with waves of smoke. She covers her mouth and coughs, pulling her shawl over her mouth and nose to filter the air she breathes. She glances around the livingroom, taking in each body draped over the tattered furniture. No, no, and no. She shakes a girl no more than fourteen and asks her, but her only response is, "Fuck off, you're killing my buzz."

All she can think is that when she was fourteen, she still collected dolls and slept with Mr. Gordo.

She goes into the kitchen, passing through a torn and stained sheet, and finds her. There is Faith, lying sprawled on a dingy mattress on the floor next to a skinny black boy not much older than her. Her top is torn halfway off, exposing her breasts, and he's leaning over her in a daze, pressing a syringe into her bruised arm.

Buffy stands very still and soaks it all in for a moment, flashing back to the night they accidentally killed that man, and the nights that followed where she'd trailed Faith here. Some nights it had been easy to bring her out, picking up her semi-conscious body and carrying her home. Other nights it had been a fight. Still others, she'd had no choice but to sit and watch until Faith was sedate enough to be taken elsewhere and sobered up. Buffy didn't know much about the multi-colored pills Faith took, or the tiny pieces of paper she stuck under her tongue. She didn't know about the powder she burned on tin foil and inhaled from, or what was in that needle, but she did know that horrible things happened to people who put needles in their body, and that Faith wasn't doing this to herself.

She sprang into action and pushed the boy off of her, taking a fighting stance unnecessarily. He just rolled over and closed his eyes, massaging his crotch with his hand. She knelt down next to Faith, whose eyes were glassy and half open, staring blankly ahead. The needle still stuck out of her arm, empty. Buffy pulled it out and threw it across the room angrily, then sat with her back towards Faith, ignoring the blood that beaded up around the insertion point, put her head in her hands, and willed herself to cry.

The tears wouldn't come.

After awhile, she turned around again and sat Faith up. She took off her shawl and wrapped it around her. She looked ridiculous, but it was all she had. Mustering the best of her Slayer abilities, she picked up the younger girl and draped her over her shoulder, heading back towards the livingroom. Someone yelled a complaint, something about her not paying them, but Buffy ignored the voice and stepped over bodies. It seemed to take hours to reach the door, which now seemed no longer bright, but a deeper, bloodier shade of red.

People stared the entire way as she walked slowly back to Faith's motel room with the now-scrawny brunette slung over her shoulder like a sack of clothing. Faith protested weakly, beating her fists against Buffy's back before passing out entirely. When they arrived, Buffy kicked open the door and walked right past the bed, dumping Faith unceremoniously into the bathtub and immediately starting the cold water running.

She went back and shut the door, then sat on the bed for a moment to catch her thoughts. It was no use, there was nothing to catch. She entered the bathroom again and flipped the switch that turned the faucet to the shower, letting it rain icy cold onto Faith's unconscious form. Her thick mahogany curls soaked slowly, sopping up the wetness and spreading in the water. Her shoe had fallen off somewhere along the walk home and her loose sock clogged the drain, backing the water up into the tub slowly. She floated in the shallow pool like Ophelia at rest, arms at her hips and the pink shawl floating up around her head forming a sort of gauzy halo, making her look like a demented angel with too much makeup and a bare breast showing again, bobbing in the water.

After a few minutes of slapping her face, Faith came to and started yelling and cursing feebly to get her the fuck out of the tub. Buffy turned the water off and helped her out into the room, wrapping her in a towel and laying her on the bed.

Faith laid silently, non-responsive.

Buffy crawled in next to her and shut her eyes, exhausted; her shoulders heavy with the weight of doing this three or four times a week for the past three weeks.

A voice came softly from the other side of the bed. "You should just let me die." She responded with a heavy sigh. "I mean it."

She opened her eyes and stared at the chair in the corner. "If you wanted to die, you wouldn't go to the same place every time so that I could find you and save you."

There was silence. Then, "Stay the fuck out of my business. You're not my mom."

"You're right. I'm not. Because your mom doesn't give a fuck about you and I do."

Even softer this time. "Fuck you."

She felt bad, spitting the truth at her while she was in this condition. There was a fine line between tough love and kicking someone when they were down, and she felt as though she might have crossed it. She was too tired to think about it more, though. She'd never been this weary in her life. Sometimes it was easier saving the world all at once than one by one.

Faith rolled over towards her. "Why do you do it, anyway?" Here it comes, Buffy thought. She remained quiet, hoping Faith would assume she fell asleep and back off. "What's the deal with saving me all the time? You just want to get in my pants, huh? You wanna fuck me, B?" She reached over with one shaky hand and combed it through the matted golden hair on the pillow next to her. "I didn't picture you liking pussy, baby, but maybe I'm somethin' special.. maybe if I give you a little taste, you'll be gone, just like the rest of them, huh?" Her voice took on an angry tone. "How about it, huh? I let you get a little lick, and you leave me the fuck alone from now on? How's that work?"

"Faith.. shut up."

"Come on, B, don't you want it?"

"Not like this. Not when you're fucked up and telling me a bunch of bullshit about how I'm just like everyone else. Just.. go to sleep."

Faith was quiet after that, maybe because of whatever was in the needle, maybe because of what Buffy had said.

Buffy laid for a long time, but sleep finally came for both of them.

Afternoon came and Buffy awoke first, her back and shoulders stiff from the long walk home with 98 pounds of girl weighing down on them. She climbed carefully out of the bed and stretched gently, loosening her muscles, then glanced back at the brunette still sleeping in a wet spot on the other side of the California King. She rummaged through a drawer quietly until she found a pack of Faith's cigarettes and took one unapologetically along with a lighter, then stepped outside into the grey day.

Her lungs contracted with the first inhale, but she didn't cough this time. Her body was getting used to them, she thought sadly, letting out a slow smoky breath. She thought about their conversation before they'd fallen asleep. How she'd said basically that she'd fuck Faith, but not while she was messed up on needles or pills or whatever. She hadn't meant it to sound that way, really. She wasn't gay, had never even thought about being gay. But things were different when she was around Faith. It wasn't like she felt gay around Faith, she just felt.. safe. Like when they danced, or slayed, or stayed up all night talking shit about guys.

And how stupid was it to feel safe around someone who couldn't even protect themselves?

She just knew she felt different. It wasn't sisterly, like with Willow. Or competitive and catty like with Cordelia. It wasn't painfully in love, like Angel. Or even that faint underlying of sexual tension she felt with Xander. When she'd asked Giles about it, he'd chalked it up to "a Slayer thing". Was that all it was? Was that what made her go down to Docktown day after day and wrest Faith's dying form away from some other junkie, dump her in a cold tub and save her life again and again?

And why did she stick around afterwards? After she knew Faith would live? Why not just leave her there to sleep it off and go home to her soft comforter and warm loving arms of her mother? She sure wasn't hanging around for a thank-you, because that never came. Just more accusations and the occasional sucker-punch.

Buffy sighed and threw the cigarette into the parking lot, then entered the room again.

Faith stood naked at the dresser, crying. Buffy said not a word, just went over to her and began dressing her like a rag doll as she went limp in her arms. She laid her down on the dry side of the bed and began to leave, but Faith would not let go of her arm.

"Let go." Faith ignored her. "I have to go home." Nothing. Buffy let out a defeated sigh and slid in next to her. Faith immediately curled around her and held onto her as if for dear life, clinging to her body like wet clothing. Like her last hope.

They lay for hours, both awake, Faith digging her claw-like nails into Buffy's tender good-girl flesh, marring it. Something changed inside Buffy, something dark opened up, and she felt the desire to scratch back, to drag her nails along the other girl's spine and tear her skin open. To reveal the truth beneath. She craved something honest.

She wrapped her arms around her tightly and Faith must have taken it as a sign. She dug her nails in deeper, pressing her mouth to her breast, and Buffy let out a strained sigh. Faith pushed her shirt up, running her tongue over her bare breasts and Buffy gave in. She hadn't been touched like this since that night with Angel, and rough as they were, Faith's hands and mouth were welcome.

It was only later, as Faith slid her fingers free and closed her eyes, that it occured to Buffy they hadn't kissed.

* * *

 

Buffy had allowed herself, just for a moment, to think what had happened between them would change things. She hated herself for that moment, for letting herself feel hope.

She hated herself for the nights that came afterward, the nights they fucked. She hated that word.. fucked. It was so gutteral. So dirty. But it was accurate enough. The animalistic way they tore at each other. The primal thrusting and groaning. One night after another, like a sick game of hide-and-seek.

Faith would go missing, get fucked up, pass out. Buffy, searching for her, finding her, dragging her home. The nasty things they'd say, screaming at each other. Throwing things. The frenzied sex full of aggression. Wake up tomorrow, do the same.

This time she'd found her on the sidewalk, a bottle of alcohol with the label peeled off clutched in her hand. They screamed at each other until people started coming out of their houses to see what was happening. Satisfied that she wasn't dead yet, Buffy left angrily. Find your own way home, she'd told her. Kill yourself if you want to. I'm done, I'm done.

I'm done.

But that was a lie, and Buffy laid in Faith's bed for hours, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for a phone call, maybe, asking her to come identify the body. Or less likely, for Faith to come through the door. Impossibly, for Faith to come through the door and be sorry.

That was the bottom line, though, wasn't it? Faith was always unapologetic, and Buffy was so weighed down with regret for what they'd done that sometimes she couldn't even breathe.

She slept, finally, the weight on her shoulders dragging her down to the depths of unconsciousness.

* * *

 

Four a.m. it was, probably. Maybe a little later. There was fumbling at the door for several minutes, and then the loud creak of the hinges and the streetlight filled the room. Faith stumbled in, her eyes dazed and glassy.

"Hey, B," she slurred, pushing the door closed behind her. "Lookit you.. all up in my bed.." For some reason, she found this funny and began laughing.

Buffy sat up, solemn. "Found your way home?"

Faith shrugged and took her jacket off, missing the dresser and dropping it to the floor. "Got ya somethin'.." Buffy frowned. "Felt bad, yunno?"

She looked around, picked up her jacket, and pulled something out, almost tripping as she stepped closer to Buffy and held out her palm.

The rose corpse lay innocently in Faith's outstretched hand, a peace offering of sorts. Buffy didn't know what else to do besides take it, her fingertips brushing the thorn scratches embedded in the other girl's flesh. The dead brown flower was just a gift to the enamored and fucked-up-on-god-only-knows-what Faith, but it seemed to symbolize their relationship to Buffy.

Faith looked so hopeful, like a child with their first macaroni painting. Buffy closed her fingers around the delicate bud and nodded a little. "Thank you."

Faith nodded and smiled, flopping onto the bed next to her. She stayed quiet while Buffy fingered the rose lightly. "I don't mean to be fucked up," she whispered after awhile. Buffy nodded. "It just happens, yunno?" Silence. "You hate me."

It wasn't a question, so she didn't answer. Faith let out a frustrated sigh and rolled over to face her. Buffy turned, her eyes searching Faith's.

The honesty between them lay beneath their skin, in the dripping blood and writhing pleasure. Everything else was a lie. The faux suicide attempts, the half-hearted rescue missions. The night was a complicated lie. Everything dark. Blurred around the edges like a photograph taken in motion.

The times when they were inside each other; fingers searching out that moment, nails tearing the flesh; that was light, was truth. Was honest.

Buffy grabbed Faith's arm, yanking her close and kissing her hard, scratching at her skin. Trying to save up a little more daylight. Keeping things real as long as she could.

Outside, the sun was rising.


End file.
